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46% less effort, the comparison summary

Using the Workman key cap scores, Norman's score is 46% less than QWERTY's. If you prefer finger travel metrics, Norman has 44% less distance travel from the home row than QWERTY. Both metrics beat Colemak, Dvorak, Klausler, Minimak, QGMLWY, Workman, and Asset. Using the andong analysis, the metrics are much different, but still put Norman in the lead over others with 23% less effort than QWERTY.

Workman key cap scores

Forgoing sophisticated mathematic models, I re-ran a similar Carpalx-style ranking test using the scoring used per key cap in the Workman layout. Every time a letter is used, it adds to a simple counter. In scoring a body of literature with Workman, letter S adds 1 point to the total, D is 2 points, and so on.

By counting the frequency of each character in the combined text, the letter frequency was the following:

etaoinsr hd lcumfpygwbvkxjqz

Spaces were added for emphasis. Note, the first list of 8 letters are in the home row of Asset, Colemak, and Norman. The 8 home row letters account for 62.9% of all letters typed, excluding whitespace, numbers, and punctuation; the first 10 are 71.8%. Considering just the placement of letters, a huge majority of typing in Norman is either on the home row, or in the natural stroke of the middle fingers.

Scoring the Norman layout using the Workman key cap model, the following is the outcome for the concatenated document. Lower is better.

Carpalx metric

The Norman layout scores about the same as the Workman or Dvorak layouts using the Carpalx analysis. The analysis output is in the Norman download.

QWERTY: 3

Dvorak: 2.098

Norman: 1.993

Workman: 1.993

Minimak: 1.930

Asset: 1.894

Colemak: 1.842

The Carpalx score varies depending on the input corpus text. During my test I got anywhere between 1.9 and 2.1 by changing the text that was analyzed. The score was 2.011 using the same text used with the Workman key cap score analysis.

Note, the Carpalx analysis doesn't account for some human factors by admission of Martin Krzywinski.

The Workman layout incorporates advanced human factors and discusses their application to Dvorak and Colemak.

In recent conversation with Stephen O'Connor, who has analyzed the Workman layout, I've been persuaded to seriously reconsider the parameters in my effort model. In particular, I do not consider that the index, middle and ring fingers have different prefered motions, for a given travel distance. For example, most will agree that the ring finger prefers to extend for the W rather than curl to the equidistant X. On the other hand, the index finger has easier access to V than R.

Key frequency heat mapping

Patrick Gillespie has a keyboard layout analyzer which can accept custom keyboard layouts. Skip to the keyboard heat map in his analyzer. Then decide for yourself from the heat map if the other metrics make sense to you. The analysis from this section was based on a combined sampling of blog articles I typed myself, hosted on http://deekayen.net.

What these metrics don't show is Norman's QWERTY similarity and what I think is an increased potential for conversion success by using the same QWERTY fingers for key moves to improve your likelihood of conversion. I'm including these to show how dramatic the finger travel decreases with Norman while still being no worse in the other metrics than its competition.

Finger distance (in feet)

QWERTY: 3122.5

Minimak: 1942.9

Dvorak: 1926.7

Klausler: 1828.8

Workman: 1822.3

Norman: 1818.7

Asset: 1790.5

QGMLWY: 1761.1

Colemak: 1761.1

Capewell: 1728.0

Arensito: 1715.2

Looking at these metrics, you might say the Norman layout is optimized for distance rather than finger-to-key frequency combinations. Though I don't have anything scientific to point to, it makes sense to me that almost halving the finger travel over QWERTY could contribute to an overall plan of hand-injury prevention more-so than a strategy of combination avoidance.

Home row usage (in percent)

QWERTY: 25.7%

Minimak: 51.1%

Norman: 51.4%

Workman: 51.4%

Arensito: 52.5%

Capewell: 52.6%

Dvorak: 54.1%

Klausler: 55.8%

Asset: 56.1%

Colemak: 56.1%

QGMLWY: 56.1%

Note, Norman and Workman make a point of de-prioritizing the center column of keys (G and H in QWERTY) whereas Colemak considers the center column part of the home row. Workman reduces overall usage of the two middle columns by about 50% over Colemak.

Consecutive finger use

Norman: 4.7%

QWERTY: 4.6%

Minimak: 3.1%

Asset: 2.6%

Workman: 2.4%

Dvorak: 2.2%

Klausler: 1.6%

Capewell: 1.4%

Arensito: 1.3%

Colemak: 1.3%

QGMLWY: 1.3%

In this case, the Norman right index and middle fingers are overloaded compared to the other modern layouts which negated any of the improvement the other layouts strived for. Norman tries to assign common characters to strong fingers and I think those are my two most agile, strong fingers.

Consecutive hand and thumb use

Capewell: 31.0%

Arensito: 29.7%

QWERTY: 29.5%

Norman: 28.4%

Asset: 28.3%

Workman: 27.0%

Minimak: 26.4%

QGMLWY: 25.8%

Colemak: 25.8%

Klausler: 18.5%

Dvorak: 17.6%

Dvorak is sometimes criticized for this outcome. Long-time users sometimes comment the Dvorak layout feels jittery when alternating from hand-to-hand. In designing Workman, OJ preferred a high same hand utilization.

The meaning of it all

Many of these metrics show that Norman is not always the premier performer in all the various possible metrics people have designed across the Internet, but it also shows the differences are small. Changing the input texts does change the analysis outputs and the rankings. Take a moment to consider the sensibility of your keyboard design.

Do you think the center column is part of the home row?

The majority of typing happens with ASETDHNIOR. Are those keys in a position that makes sense for you?

How much frustration will you get changing from QWERTY to your new layout?

Comments

Hey!
Highly interesting reading here above!
Though, dvorak is one succesful around fje works because of great accsess to use it in many other languages. Like Dvorak got Svorak for Swedish layout. Do you have a Swedish layout for Norman which by the way sounds just like Norwegian to a Swede, Norrman (in Swedish) LoL!
But a Sorman would be excellent!
Is there a possibility for that or does it already exist?!
Please let me know further!

All the analysis I did for the Norman layout is based on letter frequency in English words. I think if you made a Swedish version, it would probably have to move keys, and then it'd just be a new layout, not a language variant.

Advocate

Licensing

To the extent possible under law,
David Norman
has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to
Norman keyboard layout. Free. No copyright. No patent. No trademark. No license whatsoever. I'm not going to sue you. Just use it and be merry. I documented when I introduced it with Github commits, so if you re-publish it, re-name it, and call it your own new thing, you're the one that'll look dumb. This work is published from:
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